Daily: freewrite
Jul. 27th, 2021 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormIt's not always power. Some things never felt like power. I read something and it clicks, though: secrets are power.
How obvious does it sound laid out on the page like that? But I never mapped political secrets and treasure chests onto emotions before.
You keep your secrets and I am pleasant to you. I keep mine and you are pleasant to me. The kindness-simulation machine runs on secrets. Its secrets are mined from unkindness: little rejections and big explosions slowly draw the blinds down on our truths until, through the metamorphosis of their own weight and heat, truths harden and exude only secrets. There's no light buried this deep.
The machine runs. The machine strives for self-preservation. The machine feeds, generation after generation, rolling forward and compacting selves into secrets through the scramble for the power we hope will make us safe.
We need the power to coerce people to keep secrets since we don't think we'd like the truth.
We need the power to coerce people to meet our needs since they would never give freely and of their own volition.
We need the power because we don't have the power.
When I was young I wanted above all to feel seen. I used to imagine the tree outside my window witnessing my life since even then I knew humans could only see through the filter of their own expectations. A tree, I thought, could know me without my self being a threat.
It turns out my self is a threat. Reduce the threats by amassing power; then you'll be safe. Start up the machine. Wring secrets out of truth, wring silence out of voice. When everyone is silent then we'll be safe.
We need power in the face of threats. Secrets are power. We need secrets to be safe.
What else is life for if not safety?
***
I'd really never thought of secrets as a form of power before. So many years I've thought about abuse and coercion and so many years I've known about, for instance, the international concept of "free, prior, and *informed* consent" in law.
This month has been building and building. I used to think that keeping secrets was a sign of weakness, that when we don't feel safe to stand up and proclaim our truths as they're contradicted then that is obvious disempowerment.
This morning for the first time really I've felt how keeping secrets can control people, how limiting information can produce in people the behaviour I want. Their behaviour doesn't derive from free, prior, and informed consent though. It comes from manipulation.
I cannot emphasize enough how strange it feels to experience. I cannot emphasize enough how opposed it is to my sense of self through the years. I don't mean "this isn't the time". I don't mean "be careful in your delivery". Those are human. "Never let me know of this" is a machine that mills off our soft and inconvenient parts.
This moment has been coming a long time. As always we can look back into the past and see tiny actions chipping away, a grain of sand at a time, at the mountain of our selves. We would never suspect one grain of sand of damage but here the mountaintop is suddenly half crater.
How obvious does it sound laid out on the page like that? But I never mapped political secrets and treasure chests onto emotions before.
You keep your secrets and I am pleasant to you. I keep mine and you are pleasant to me. The kindness-simulation machine runs on secrets. Its secrets are mined from unkindness: little rejections and big explosions slowly draw the blinds down on our truths until, through the metamorphosis of their own weight and heat, truths harden and exude only secrets. There's no light buried this deep.
The machine runs. The machine strives for self-preservation. The machine feeds, generation after generation, rolling forward and compacting selves into secrets through the scramble for the power we hope will make us safe.
We need the power to coerce people to keep secrets since we don't think we'd like the truth.
We need the power to coerce people to meet our needs since they would never give freely and of their own volition.
We need the power because we don't have the power.
When I was young I wanted above all to feel seen. I used to imagine the tree outside my window witnessing my life since even then I knew humans could only see through the filter of their own expectations. A tree, I thought, could know me without my self being a threat.
It turns out my self is a threat. Reduce the threats by amassing power; then you'll be safe. Start up the machine. Wring secrets out of truth, wring silence out of voice. When everyone is silent then we'll be safe.
We need power in the face of threats. Secrets are power. We need secrets to be safe.
What else is life for if not safety?
***
I'd really never thought of secrets as a form of power before. So many years I've thought about abuse and coercion and so many years I've known about, for instance, the international concept of "free, prior, and *informed* consent" in law.
This month has been building and building. I used to think that keeping secrets was a sign of weakness, that when we don't feel safe to stand up and proclaim our truths as they're contradicted then that is obvious disempowerment.
This morning for the first time really I've felt how keeping secrets can control people, how limiting information can produce in people the behaviour I want. Their behaviour doesn't derive from free, prior, and informed consent though. It comes from manipulation.
I cannot emphasize enough how strange it feels to experience. I cannot emphasize enough how opposed it is to my sense of self through the years. I don't mean "this isn't the time". I don't mean "be careful in your delivery". Those are human. "Never let me know of this" is a machine that mills off our soft and inconvenient parts.
This moment has been coming a long time. As always we can look back into the past and see tiny actions chipping away, a grain of sand at a time, at the mountain of our selves. We would never suspect one grain of sand of damage but here the mountaintop is suddenly half crater.
